


The Rule for Giving and Receiving Gifts

by orphan_account



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, because mafia AU doesn't have to be all doom and gloom, mentions of young Yuuri having a crush on Yuuko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 19:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Yuuri hated roses with a passion. When he woke to the sight of a vase of roses sitting on his table on the morning of his twenty-fourth birthday, he was reasonably mad. Someone had better start explaining themselves fast.Or, Victor unknowingly bought the handsome Japanese man who hates roses exactly that to seduce him. (He succeeds anyway)YOI Mafia Week - Day 4: Weapons, Roses





	The Rule for Giving and Receiving Gifts

**Author's Note:**

> This work is unbetaed. Please feel free to correct any mistakes that you see!

**(Present day, Hasetsu)**

For all that he lived a life of crime and violence, Yuuri was a simple man who loved. He loved the sound of gun powder exploding, loved the feel of the recoil slamming into his shoulder, loved the stream of smoke that rose from the muzzle afterwards. Heck, he even loved the sound of bullet ricocheting off a hard surface, nerve wrecking and teeth clenching as it was. Yuuri had little reason to hate anything, but God did he hate roses.

For all that he was a Katsuki and could have anything he wanted at a snap of his fingers, Yuuri was a reasonable man. On their first day, all of his subordinates were told in no uncertain terms that he hated roses. Everyone with any shred of common sense knew to keep any trace of a rose out of the young master's sight. Yuuri knew no one dared even to wear rose-scented body mist or own any personal belongings with the slightest resemblance of a rose even though he never forbade those.

Which was why Katsuki Yuuri was mad right now. Fuming mad.

Someone actually had the audacity to place a vase of roses on his desk on his birthday, instantly guaranteeing that he would start the day off in a sour mood.

They were not any rose either. Red roses. The variety he hated the most.

Someone better had a good explanation for this or there would be hell to pay.

"Happy birthday, Yuuri! Have you seen your gift yet?"

Mari's voice sounded a little too happy for her to be completely innocent of the travesty that was sitting on his table like a scab on a healing wound - you kept picking at it even though it hurt to be picked. After trying and failing for the umpteenth time to ignore it, he narrowed his eyes at the offending object and willed it out of his sight. Alas, for all that Yuuri was feared as a deadly man of many talents, telekinesis wasn't one of them.

"Mari, tell me you are not responsible for this," groaned Yuuri.

Mari's smug expression confirmed Yuuri's suspicion of her involvement.

"I didn't buy them, if that's what you mean - they were hand delivered by a potential suitor of yours. I was only responsible for stopping Minami from throwing them away immediately. The boy's probably still out there quaking in fear."

Yuuri sighed in frustration.

"Then tell me why, Mari, did you think that I would be interested in someone who decided to give me the one thing I hate the most in my life as a birthday gift?"

Mari shrugged. "Perhaps he didn't know better? Besides, he showed up with all ten fingers plastered, just the way you were all those years ago."

If there was one thing Yuuri hated more than receiving a bouquet of roses for his birthday, it was being reminded of why he hated them in the first place.

"Look, he even left a card," said Mari.

The nonchalant way Mari said 'he' struck Yuuri right in the middle of his solar plexus, knocking the breath out of him. For a moment, Yuuri forget which muscles were used for breathing. Diaphragm and intercostal muscles. That's right. He learnt that in science. Weren't they supposed to work involuntarily? How do you command them to move?

Mari hummed a cheery tune and picked up the vase of roses, inspecting them critically while she waited for her brother to get over his sudden onset of existential crisis from realising that he didn't need to come out of the closet with his family after all because they were all sitting right there in the closet beside him all along.

"Still not reason enough for me to date him," spluttered Yuuri when he finally regained control of his breathing muscles. No one can ever accuse him of being one to back down without a fight.

Mari cocked one perfectly formed eyebrow at him.

"Oh? In that case, I should go return this to Victor now."

-

Downstairs, Minami jumped as he heard a loud shriek emanating from the young master's room. He wrung his hands together nervously.

"I knew I should not have let Mari-aneue talk me into not throwing those roses away," he bewailed to no one in particular.

The other servants tiptoed their way around him, keeping their distances at a maximum for fear of being incriminated by association.

 

* * *

  **(16 years ago, Hasetsu)**  

Mother's Day was coming up. Yuuri knew because Yuuri was a good and pious kid and that had nothing to do with his elementary school teacher reminding them of the fact nearly every day. Yuuri also knew that he was supposed to get something for his mother. Only he didn't know what.

"Mari nee-san, what are you getting for mother?" asked Yuuri, following his sister around like a lost puppy.

His sister had started helping out in the family business lately and was in the midst of inspecting the latest shipment of rifle.

"A weapon. I don't trust those bodyguards. They're incompetent," said Mari at once.

"A rifle?" asked Yuuri, his interest piqued. He had never handled any of them yet, though his mother had promised to take him to the shooting range one day and teach him.

Mari frowned, her brows knitted together the way they always do whenever she was thinking.

"No. Maybe not a rifle. Too big to carry around and too conspicuous. Maybe a Glock." Her eye brows rose and her eyes widened together with them. There was an excited glint in her eyes. "Yes. Definitely a Glock."

She hugged Yuuri. "Yuuri, you are a godsend."

Yuuri had no idea what a 'gurokku' was but he could tell Mari's mind was otherwise occupied and either way she clearly was not interested in continuing the conversation. So he moved on to the next person he could think of - his father.

"A gift for your mother? I gave her a katana the first time we met and the first rest was history."

Cue Yuuri pretending to be interested for the next two hours while his father brought out a long, curved sword and began rambling about why traditional Japanese weapons were way better than the gunfire younger generations preferred these days. Yuuri decided he was not going to tell his father that Mari was getting their mother a 'gurokku', which was most likely very modern and not Japanese at all.

Having exhausted the wits of his immediate family (except his mother, but how do you ask a person what sort of gift they liked as a surprise?), he consulted his next best option.

"Yuuko-san, what are you getting for your mother?"

Yuuko was hugging a bouquet of yellow flowers close to her chest. They were prettily arranged and wrapped in coloured paper.

"Flowers, of course! All girls love flowers!" exclaimed Yuuko.

That was perhaps the best suggestion Yuuri had heard all week.

"Don't be an idiot," said Takeshi at once. "His mother is the kumicho. Flowers are for the weak. The strong gets weapons." That earned him an immediate scowl from Yuuko and a hard smack on his shoulder. "Hey, it's the truth!"

Yuuri decided that he had no interest in finding out what weapon Takeshi thought was the most appropriate, modern, traditional or otherwise.

"What flowers do you like?" asked Yuuri.

Yuuko didn't even need to think. "Red roses, of course! They're the prettiest!"

Yuuri thought it must be a lie because Yuuko was the prettiest thing he had ever seen on earth but if she thought red roses were pretty, he wasn't going to argue with her. Now, his next problem was where to get his hands on roses. It turned out to be easier than he thought, because Yuuko immediately volunteered to show him to the "best flower shop in Hasetsu".

The "best flower shop in Hasetsu" turned out to be two racks of flowers displayed along the side of the wall with windows of a dance studio. The flowers were all nice, but something about the red ones at the far end caught his attention at once.

"Those are roses, Yuuri! Aren't they pretty?"

Red roses, Yuuri conceded, were indeed pretty.

"Minako-san, how much does these cost?"

"These costs 700 yens a stalk," replied Minako. Yuuri felt his jaw smash through the floor of the dance studio down to the ground floor below. He didn't even have 200 yen in his pockets.  
Somewhere at the back of his head, he remembered something about haggling and bargaining, though he knew there was no use for either here. There was an ice cold edge to Minako's voice that suggested that heaven and earth combined cannot move her from her decisions. Perhaps being a florist was merely a front and she was really the Snow Queen with an ice heart.

"Aww... Minako-san, Yuu-chan wants to get them for his mother. Give him a discount, please?" Yuuko blinked prettily at her.

From where he stood, Yuuri could see Minako's ice cold heart being reduced to a puddle at her feet. Nobody could look at Yuuko's angelic face and not melt. Her eyes softened.

"Of course, dear." Minako smiled sweetly at Yuuko before turning to look at Yuuri. Her eyes hardened once more. Yuuri gulped.

"Okay, but you need to earn it. I won't have you thinking that you can have your way all the time just because you are a Katsuki. I have a huge order coming in for Mother's Day and I can't finish removing all the thorns alone. You can have one rose for every hundred stalks you help me with."

Yuuri's eyes glinted with excitement.

"Really? Thanks!"

Roses were pretty. Thorns were not. Yuuri learned this the hard way. By the time Mother's Day came around, his fingers were all wrapped up in plaster and if he never saw a single stalk of rose again for the rest of his life, it was too soon.

"Yuuri, what happened to your fingers?" asked Mari when she saw him later that night. She both looked and sounded horrified. "You look worse than that one time when my teacher decided it was a good idea to force embroidery on me."

Yuuri hung his head and blushed. His fingers hurt so bad he had trouble brushing his teeth that morning but it was completely worth it for the single stalk of rose that he got for his mother.

"Did someone bully you at school? I swear if someone thought they could get away with touching a hair on my baby brother's head-"

"No one bullied me, nee-san. I got hurt trying to de-thorn the roses. Minako-san agreed to give me one if I manage to do a hundred." Yuuri couldn't help the hint of pride creeping in his voice.

Yuuri would never forget the sound of Mari bursting spontaneously into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

"You didn't!"

"I did too!" Yuuri pouted. "It was so hard removing the thorns."

"Yuuri, mother is allergic to flower pollen."

Somebody just emptied are bucket of ice cold water over Yuuri's head.

"What?"

"What? You think the reason we never get mother flowers was because we're the yakuza and we're oh-so-strong and flowers are for weaklings?"

"Uh... Yes?"

"No!" With that, Mari degenerated into another fit of evil cackle. "My brother just ruined his hands for nothing."

After what felt like an eternity but on reality was probably closer to a minute, Mari finally sobered.

"Look, Yuuri. As your big sister, it is my duty to teach you the first rule of giving and receiving gifts. First rule of giving gifts: you need to find out what the recipient likes. It's not about what you like. If, say, you absolutely loved poodles but your friend is allergic to dogs, you don't get them a dog unless you wanted to terminate your friendship with him, get it?"

Yuuri had to admit that it actually made sense.

"What's the other one?" asked Yuuri.

"What other one?"

"The first rule for receiving gifts." 

 

* * *

  **(Three months ago, Sochi)**

Victor was having the time of his life. When he travelled to Sochi all the way from Saint Petersburg, the last thing on his mind was to end up being challenged to a dance off by a drunk Japanese man but here he was.

Now, the man wrapped himself around him and was in the process of dry humping him in public.

"Mmm... Roses are pretty, aren't they?" said the man, tugging at the blue rose Victor wore in his breast pocket. "I once had to dethorn a hundred roses in exchange for a single stalk for my mother when I was a kid." For a moment, the man looked terribly upset. Then, his face brightened. "I got her a hundred! One-zero-zero." He pulled back momentarily and held one finger up in one hand while he bent the fingers of the other to form an "O". He pulled the hand forming the "O" back a little, moved it further away from his other hand and pushed it forwards again, as if stamping two zeros in the air. "My birthday is on the 29th of November. Do you think you can get me a hundred roses?"

"Anything for you," whispered Victor. He was smitten. It was dangerous, he knew, for a man in his stature to give his heart away so easily but at the moment, he didn't care.

It took Victor all of his self restraint to leave that night after checking the man into a hotel room. Otabek said nothing that night and again the next morning throughout their entire drive to the venue for the meeting. Good thing he had the good sense to bring the stoic young man along over his other subordinates.

The meeting between the Russian bratva and Japanese yakuza refused to end no matter how hard Victor prayed. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that it just started not five minutes ago. Actually, Victor wasn't a complete idiot and he knew it was exactly because it started not five minutes ago.

A distraction would be most welcome, thought Victor to whichever deity and saint who would care to hear him out.

The worst part of it was that now that Yakov had named him his heir, Victor can't get away with letting him mind wonder elsewhere. He needed to stay sharp and focus and know every single detail of the trade like the back of his hands so that he can work his mind around all possible loopholes so the bratva don't get shorted in the exchange. Victor was an airhead, but he knew his Family depended on him securing trade deals like these.

There was a knock on the door and the speaker stopped speaking for blessed moment. Victor's saviour turned out to be none other than the exceedingly gorgeous Japanese man he met at the bar the night before.

"Ah, Mari nee-san. Sorry for being late," said the man.

The Japanese speaker waved a hand dismissively, though Victor did not miss how her eyes softened just a fraction. Whoever this man was to her, she certainly wasn't going to be angry at him for being late any time soon. Now, the man turned to face him.

"Yuuri Katsuki," the man introduced himself. He sounded nervous, but instead of sounding like an incompetent fool, every tremor in his voice only served to highlight how sexy his face looked when he blushed.

"Pleased to meet you. I am-"

"Victor Nikiforov," blurted the man.

Victor didn't think the man could blush any more than he already did, but clearly he was wrong. Redness spread from the base of his neck, ascending upwards to cover his face and ears. He looked like an overripe tomato and it was cute beyond words. Victor wondered briefly if he tasted just as sweet.

"You remember! Amazing!"

Victor didn't think that the man would remember what he told him the night before. Not after having drunk himself to a stupor. It was worth it, then, that Victor in turn remembered the other man's birthday and his wish for a hundred roses.

 

* * *

**(Present day, Hasetsu)**  

"And that," said Phichit, "Is the story of what happened."

Yuuri buried his face into his hands, never to see daylight again.

"Why didn't you stop me?" he moaned.

"Well, I know you were smitten with Victor since the first time you saw him all those years ago and I didn't want to interrupt you two. Not when he looked equally smitten himself." Phichit shrugged, as if he couldn't understand why he needed to be summoned from his house so early in the morning to explain this.

Mari cackled, drawing everyone's attention back to her.

"Well, since Yuuri was clearly upset at seeing these, I'll dis-"

Yuuri screeched and lept at her, snatching the vase out of her hands with the lightning speed that came as a result of spending years training for combat.

"I want them!" snapped Yuuri.

"But you hate roses, don't you?"

Yuuri hugged them close to his chest, inhaling the sweet aroma that wafted off them. It was strangely relaxing, soothing the nerves that he had built up since that morning.

"I can't believe you're giving up your principle now. What happened to not falling for someone who couldn't care enough to find out about your likes and dislikes before getting you a gift?" teased Phichit.

"Well, you see," Yuuri began. 

 

* * *

  **(16 years ago, Hasetsu)**

"Oh, Yuuri. Are these for me?"

Yuuri hung his head in shame. If things went the way he wanted them to, the flowers would be sitting at the bottom of a trash can where they belong and Yuuri could lie that he had forgotten about Mother's Day. Instead, Mari had made all haste to present them to their mother.

"I'm sorry, mother. I didn't know you're allergic to flowers."

"I'm upset, Yuuri," said his mother sternly.

Yuuri shrank further into himself. He knew from the gossips he overheard from the others that his mother was a force to be reckoned with when crossed, but that was the first time he was on the receiving end of her displeasure.

"I... I..." Have no excuse. Yuuri's mind finished his sentence for him. Yuuri hung his head lower.

"I'm upset you thought you need to apologise. These are amazing! I love them. Thank you so much." His mother hugged him and planted a kiss on his forehead. Then, she took his hands in hers and studied them. "Oh, Yuuri. My sweet Yuuri."

"But... But you're allergic to them!"

"Yuuri," said Hiroko. "I don't mind. It's-" 

* * *

 "-the thought-" said Mari. 

* * *

  **(Present day, Hasetsu)**

"-that counts," finished Yuuri.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
